


Early

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Series: Near Miss AU [17]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Gen, Modern AU, Parent David Jacobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24526807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: One of Leah Jacobs's first memories is of playing with Frankie Higgins-Conlon, while Davey cries into his friends' shoulders on the couch.
Relationships: David Jacobs & Les Jacobs, David Jacobs/Jack Kelly, past David Jacobs/Katherine Plumber
Series: Near Miss AU [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735408
Comments: 43
Kudos: 76





	Early

**Author's Note:**

> This is a skip a few years into the future, from Leah's POV! Because of that, it's a little more centered on the kids - Leah and Frankie, obviously, but their siblings also appear! This is the only story I'm planning to have focus so much on the kids rather than the canon characters, but after writing AWWFFY I was itching to write a little about Leah and the others learning about The Kate Situation.

One of Leah’s first memories is a vague impression of playing with Frankie while her father sat on the couch with Sean and Tony. It’s not substantially different from a lot of her very young memories, which tend to blur into a haze of playing with Frankie at one house or the other, except she knows in this one Dad is sad. She remembers him with his legs pulled onto the couch, head on Tony’s shoulder while Sean rubs his back.

It’s the kind of moment Leah knows they stopped having in front of her and Frankie as they got older, but probably still happened. It’s not a very strongly specific memory besides that image of her parents, although she thinks it’s tied with one of the only times she heard her Dad say _Leah’s Mom_ when she was small.

Leah doesn’t remember her mom, at least not in a specific mom way. It would be super weird if she did, because she knows her mom and dad split when she was less than six months old. As far as she knows, Dad doesn’t have any pictures of the three of them as a family.

She doesn’t mind.

Leah’s young childhood was full of love and had no shortage of parental figures. Between Dad and Sean and Tony Leah never had a moment to miss the idea of a mom. All the more because she’s had Jack, too, since she was five. He married Dad when she was seven.

As she’s gotten older, Leah’s learned bits and pieces about her mother – she went to college with Dad, something bad happened when Leah was a few months old that ended with her leaving them, she was the first real love of Dad’s life. Leah’s wondered for a long time what could’ve made her up and leave them, but mostly in a pretty abstract way.

“So, Aunt Kate is your mom, right?” Sawyer says when they’re 12 and 14, flopped over their bed with their head hanging upside down facing Leah across the room. Sawyer’s been with them for a little more than six months at this point. “How’d that happen?”

Leah, who’s been sketching on her own bed, freezes. “Aunt Kate?”

“She is, right?” says Sawyer.

“Aunt Kate isn’t my mom,” Leah replies, setting her sketchbook down and turning to face her sibling.

“Oh,” Sawyer replies. “You look a lot like her, is all. And I know you’re Dad’s bio kid, so I figured she must’ve been a surrogate or something?”

Leah shakes her head. “You’ve got it all wrong, Soy. My mom’s, like, Dad’s one big heartbreak. Some girl he fell in love with in college.” She cocks her head to one side, thinking. “You really think I look like Aunt Kate?”

“Mostly around the eyes,” Sawyer says, shrugging. “And your build, I guess. Dad’s family are all so stringbeany, you know? I dunno, it’s hard to describe, but when you stand next to her you look related.”

“S’probably just a coincidence,” Leah says after a moment. “I mean, like. Dad doesn’t talk about it, but I’m pretty sure mom, like, broke him. I feel like Dad would’ve said something to Aunt Sar before she married Aunt Kate if it were her, you know?”

“I dunno,” says Sawyer. “I mean, you know Dad better than I do, but I’ve gotten the impression he puts other people’s happiness over his a lot.” They wave vaguely toward the terrarium that now lives in the corner of the bedroom, home to Leonard the snake. Dad’s a little weirded out by Leonard, but he tries to play it off in favor of supporting Sawyer’s interests.

Yeah, okay, Dad’s exactly the kind of person who wouldn’t say anything if his sister started dating the person who broke his heart if he thought they’d make her happy.

“Probably a coincidence,” Leah repeats, a little distantly.

Sawyer hums. “F’you say so, Beah.”

Leah puts it out of her mind. For now.

It’s one of those thoughts that drifts in and out, just like all her other thoughts about her birth mom. It drifts in after a beach day that ends with Leah and Kate having matching sunburns worse than any other member of the family, it drifts out when Sawyer flops onto the sand next to her just as red and peely. It drifts in when Kate gets weirdly emotional over Leah’s 8th grade graduation, it drifts out when the moment passes so fast she thinks she must have imagined it.

The summer she’s fifteen and Frankie is fourteen, Leah decides she’s pretty sure Sawyer was right.

Something Dad said about college made Kate snort, and then the two of them looked at each other with wide, nervous eyes like they’d given up a secret. Leah looked from one to the other and realized that they kind of had.

Leah bursts into Frankie and Erin’s room, one hand in a tight grip on Sawyer’s wrist as she drags them behind her. “Hey, Erry, can Soy and I borrow Frankie for a minute?”

“You’re welcome to him,” Erin replies. “He’s bein’ a pain.”

Sawyer laughs. “God, Franks, what are you doing to her?”

“Literally nothing,” says Frankie. “Literally, actually nothing. She’s just dramatic.”

“This is your cosmic payback for how dramatic _you_ were when we were seven,” Leah says.

“Ugh, god, I know,” Frankie replies. “’Ey, Erry, go away.”

“This is my room too, you can’t just kick me out!” says Erin.

“Fine, go tell on me to Dad, see if I care.”

“Dad will just say you _need your space sometimes_.” Erin rolls her eyes. “I’ll tell Poppa.”

“Don’t –“

“Erry, you can stay, it’s fine,” Leah says. She kneels next to her cousin, who’s sitting on the floor glaring up at her brother. She offers a hand, pinky out. “You’ve just gotta pinky promise not to tell the Dad Squad what we’re talkin’ about, okay? It’s a secret.”

“Promise,” says Erin. She hooks her pinky around Leah’s.

“Okay, cousin conference,” says Leah. She leans back against the side of Erin’s bed. “Sawyer, sit.”

“Sitting,” Sawyer replies, rolling their eyes. They perch on Frankie’s bed, on the opposite end from Frankie himself.

“Should I tell Dad and Papa that I’ve figured out Aunt Kate is my mom?”

“Aunt Kath is your mom?” Frankie repeats, his eyebrows raised.

“Pretty sure,” says Leah.

“You’ve been sittin’ on that for a _while_ , Beah,” says Sawyer, raising an eyebrow. “What changed your mind?”

“I guess I’d never really thought about it before you brought it up,” Leah says, twisting the end of her hair around her fingers. “And I’ve spent the last couple of years watching them.”

“Your dad does get super weird around Aunt Kath sometimes,” says Frankie. “And the other way ‘round, too.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Leah says. “And Sawyer says I look like Kate.”

“I guess I can see that,” Erin says, frowning thoughtfully.

“And the Kate thing!” Sawyer says, leaning forward suddenly. Leah, not used to sudden movements or outbursts from her sibling, blinks in surprise. “Aunt Kate lets exactly three people call her Kate, you know.” They hold up three fingers, tapping each as they list off the names. “You, Bee, and me, and _Dad._ She gets weird and shuts it down if anybody else even thinks it. They’ve got a history, I’m sure of it.”

“Weird,” says Frankie.

“Okay, but like, do I tell Dad that I’ve figured it out, or –“

“Run it by Uncle Les,” Frankie cuts in.

“What?”

“Talk to Uncle Les about it,” Sawyer agrees. “There’s no way he doesn’t know, if it really is Katie. That way you can get a confirmation or denial without making Dad uncomfortable if we’re wrong.”

“You two are geniuses,” says Leah. “This is why I keep you around.”

“Here’s me thinking it’s because we’re related,” Sawyer says flatly, rolling their eyes.

Frankie checks the time. “Oh, we gotta go, Beah.”

“Right, it’s a Friday,” says Leah. “Is Tony at the studio already or is he driving us?”

“He’s driving,” says Frankie.

“Great,” says Leah. She stands up and makes for the door to run back to the Jacobs-Kelly home for her dance bag, but pauses, turning back toward Erin. “Not a word, Erry.”

Erin mimes zipping her lips shut. “I know how pinky promises work _Lee-uh_.”

Leah texts Les from the passenger seat of Tony’s car, not wanting to waste any time.

_Me: hey les are you free tomorrow_

_Cool Uncle: yeah why_

_Me: ive decided i miss when you lived with us can we hang out_

_Cool Uncle: for sure lol_

_Cool Uncle: I’ll text your dads abt it_

So the next day around noon, Les picks Leah up and the two of them go out for lunch and an afternoon at the museum.

“I’ve got to be straight with you, Uncle Les,” Leah says, leaning over the rail enclosing an articulated fossil skeleton. She’s looking up at the dinosaur, but she can see Les in her periphery. “I had an ulterior motive for asking you to hang out. Not that I _don’t_ miss when you lived with us, because I do.”

Les laughs. “Okay, Bean. What’s buggin’ ya?”

“You don’t like Aunt Kate very much,” says Leah. She sees Les go still, a faint frown on his face.

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” says Les.

“Only if it isn’t true.”

“Leah, what are you getting at?”

Leah bites down on the inside of her lip, steeling herself. “Is it because she’s my mom?”

“How –“ Les leans heavily on the railing, sighing. “Leah, look at me.”

Leah does.

“Did you figure that out by yourself?” asks Les.

Leah wiggles her hand in a so-so gesture. “Tofu gave me the idea. Are we right?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Les says after a long pause. “You and Sawyer are pretty bright, Davey should’a figured you two would figure it out.”

“Is that why you don’t like Aunt Kate?” Leah asks again, a little more confident this time. “Because she hurt dad?”

Les’s expression darkens a little. “Yes.”

“It was a long time ago,” Leah points out. “I’m fifteen now, Dad and Papa have been married like eight years. You’re still mad at her for it?”

Les opens his arms for a hug, which Leah gives him without question. He gives her a tight squeeze before speaking again. “You were just a baby, Bean, but – shit, okay, you can’t tell your dad I told you this, okay? He hates that I’m still holding it against her. But he was wrecked after your mom left you guys, and things almost fell through with your papa because of it, right when they were starting out.”

“Really?”

“Really,” says Les. “He still loves her a lot, not the same way he did when you were born, but he loves her. He never really let himself be mad.” He kisses the top of Leah’s head before fully releasing her and letting her take a half step back. “So I’m mad for him. Somebody’s gotta be.”

“I see,” Leah says quietly.

“You okay, bud?” Les asks.

“It’s weird to know for sure,” says Leah. “Like, we’ve been wondering for a while but, like, she’s been around my whole life and she and Dad just never said anything.”

“That’s understandable,” says Les. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “You wanna go home? Talk to your dads about it?”

“Uh, yeah,” Leah replies quietly. “Can we?”

“Yeah, Bean, let’s go home,” Les says. “I’ll even grab Tofu and we can hang out at the H-C house for a bit if you wanna talk to Jack and Davey tonight.”

“Thanks, Uncle Les.”

Which is how Leah finds herself back in her family home, curled on the couch with a hot cocoa courtesy of Uncle Les who has since grabbed her sibling and made himself scarce.

“You okay, baby girl?” Papa asks, coming around the couch to sit next to her. “Usually you’re pretty happy when you come home from hanging out with Les, but you seem kinda down.”

“Where’s Dad?” Leah asks instead of answering.

“He’s next door,” says Papa. “Is everything okay, Leah?”

“I –“

The front door opens, and Dad comes in. “Hey, guys. Les just, like, shoved me out of the Higgins-Conlon house, so apparently we’re not having dinner.” His eyes fall on Leah. “Bee, are you alright?”

“Why don’t you tell people Aunt Kate’s my mom?

Her dads both stare at her.

Eventually, Dad croaks out, “ _What?”_

“Is it just because she got with Aunt Sarah and it’s weird or –“

“Leah Marie Jacobs-Kelly, _backtrack for a minute_ ,” Papa says. “Repeat.”

“Why don’t you tell people she’s my mom?”

“Who told _you_?” Dad asks, looking back over his shoulder toward the Higgins-Conlons’ apartment.

Leah shrugs. “We figured it out, Dad. Soy thinks I look like her, and you two are so weird sometimes.” She looks down at her mug. “I asked Uncle Les about it today.”

Papa opens his arm to her, and Leah scoots over to curl up underneath it. “You could’a asked Tony or Sean, you know. If you wanted confirmation before askin’ us about it.”

“We knew Uncle Les would tell me the truth even if you guys didn’t want him to,” says Leah. She looks over at Dad again, who’s fallen onto one of the armchairs a little haphazardly. “Why is it a secret, Dad?”

“Partly because you were a secret, before you were born,” Dad says with a sigh. “This might come as a shock, Leah-beah, but you weren’t exactly planned.”

Leah laughs. “No, really?”

“We hadn’t told anybody you were coming, and none of my family knew I had a girlfriend,” Dad says, and he’s smiling but it’s a little sad. “So when she left and I came home it was easier just not to talk about her. And then _somebody_ went and introduced her to your Aunt Sarah.”

“That’d be me,” Papa says in a low voice. “Whoops?”

“I didn’t want to wreck what they had going before they even got started so Kate and I agreed to pretend we didn’t know each other,” says Dad. “Quite honestly, baby, I didn’t tell a single soul the whole truth about what happened until I met Papa when you were in kindergarten.”

“By that point,” Papa interjects, “even though Dad and Aunt Kate were in a better spot, it just would’ve been weird to start tellin’ people willy-nilly, you know?”

“I suppose,” says Leah.

“And she was one of your favorite people when you were small,” Papa continues. “None of us wanted to risk ruining that for you.”

“We were always planning to tell you eventually,” says Dad. “I admit, though, that I was not prepared for you to figure it out by yourself.”

Leah takes a sip of her hot chocolate. “I feel like you should be less surprised. I have your genes and Kate’s, plus being raised by Papa, Tony, and Sean, too? I’m smart, Dad.”

Dad snorts. “Yeah, baby girl, you’re very smart.”

“Smartass, more like,” says Papa.

“That’s your fault,” says Leah.

“Oh, no,” Papa says, squishing her into his side a little tighter, “you were like this when I met you. All of five years old and telling Dad to wait before you’d introduce your toys to me. I think it’s genetic.”

“Leah?” Dad says, and Leah looks at him, meeting his eye. “How are you feeling about all this, kiddo?”

“A little weird,” Leah admits.

“Do you want to talk to Aunt Kate about it at all?”

“No.” Leah takes a deep breath. “I don’t. It’s nice to know, I guess. Nice to know why you never told me, too. But I have four parents already, I don’t need any more.”

“She loves you very much, you know.”

“I know.”

Papa kisses Leah’s hair. “I think today calls for a fun dinner, what do you say? Davey, Tones hasn’t started cooking, has he?”

“He hasn’t,” Dad confirms.

“Great, let’s order in,” says Papa. “Someplace the kids like. Sound good, Bean?”

“Sounds good.”

Leah lets her dads start worrying about dinner, focusing on her hot chocolate and how she’s feeling.

That early, vague memory fades in.

_Playing with Frankie. They’re small, there are blocks and baby toys._

_Dad, curled between Sean and Tony on the couch. She thinks he might be crying._

_“I ran into Leah’s mom earlier.”_

Leah takes a sharp breath. She’s never known for sure exactly how early the memory was, she’s never given it too much thought. It usually only comes to her when she’s half asleep, and sometimes she thinks she might’ve dreamed it, but no – no. She’s sure it’s a memory, now.

 _I ran into Leah’s mom earlier_.

When Leah was not-quite-two, Aunt Sarah brought her now wife to meet her brother. Leah’s suddenly sure this vague, toddlerhood memory is of that day.

“Leah?” Dad says from by the kitchen counter, looking at her with a little bit of concern. “Are you still feeling okay?”

“Hmm?” Leah looks up at her father, her heart aching for him just a little bit. “Yeah, Dad. I’m okay.”


End file.
